First Impressions from MGT

[Golan2072]

I've received MGT today. I'm going to read through it for the first time and post my comments here like I did back in 2006 with T4 and TNE.

Pre-Read Impressions
I've just thumbed through the book for the first time without reading much. The cover is high-quality hardback. It is a black cover with red text and without much decorations, but still feels very cool-looking and clean. Because of the quality cover materials it still looks very, very attractive as a book. Binding is good; the paper used is similar to standard A4 printer paper. The interior is 100% black-and white.

The interior font is very readable and the tables are mostly in a very readable size as far as I can tell. Internal illustrations are a mixed bag: on one hand, the ship pictures ROCK BIG TIME, and on the other hand a few illustrations weren't so good; the majority of art falls in between these two extremes: adequate, appropriate to their context, good flavor/atmosphere but nothing breathtaking.

If this was the first time I had a Traveller book in my hands, I might have guessed from the illustrations that Traveller is similar in look and feel to a cross between Alien/Aliens and Starcraft (some illustrations were similar to the Starcraft manual's art). Most guns feel like the Pulse Rifle from Aliens.

A minor gripe: some of the career's art doesn't come in the correct order: for example, for Citizen, the sub-careers are Corporate, Worker and Colonist while the illustrations look like Worker, Corporate and Colonist (and the Colonist looks a bit paramilitary).

Now, on to reading the book itself

 

[kafka47]

Thanks Gruffy. Art is very important for the newbie who picks up the game for the first time. One of the things that turned me on to Traveller was the Keith illustrations (while those are now dated). Certainly, Challenge produced some lovely interiors...hopefully the Art Director over at Mongoose has these artists on his rolodex. As I am quite happy with what I see for Conan & Runequest not to mention some of their earlier releases...this is one area that I don't think Mongoose will screw up...they just have to remember that Paranoia has a different vibe than Traveller.

 

[Klaus]

I don't think the 'poor' illos are bad art, just very unfinished. It's like they said to the artist, "We got £50; can you produce illustrations for us for 36 different careers?". That's 5 hours work, max. So about 8 mins per illo. By that standard, they're not bad. If he'd had time to finish them I'd say they could look pretty good: you can actually still see the pencil marks where his hurried erasing has left a bit. Rush job.

Contrast that with the 'colour' art. Well it's obviously originally in colour, and they paid for for colour art, but then couldn't afford to have colour pages.

This being one of the first books to use their new printers it may have been a case of time and cash flow.

Not going to hang them for it. The 'quick' art has a Brit vibe, a 2000AD sensibility to it. I like that, in theory; just pay the guy to finish them off properly for the next edition.. !

 

[Golan2072]

Impressions from the Introduction
The introduction is fine and more or less what you'd expect from such a book. The exception to this is the fact that, while there are paragraphs describing referees, players, and game types, there is no paragraph saying what an RPG is. I guess that MGT is aimed at people with at least a passing familiarity with RPGs.

On the other hand, the example of play is good and relevant. This is a good RPG core-book practice: every RPG core-book should have one. This lets a new player understand what Traveller is all about and how playing it should feel.

The four archetypal Traveller campaign types - trade, warfare, exploration and odds'n'ends - are given, along with a nice feature: sci-fi media examples (TV, movies and computer games) for each of the first three styles. Again, this gives new players a feel for these campaign types, which is a great thing.

The Imperium is mentioned as the default setting, but the book gives very little information about the Imperium. A page or two of introductionary material about the OTU would've been nice. As a general note, the core-book isn't instantly playable "as-is" (but neither was CT) - no default subsector and background are given, and no starting adventure, though Signs and Portents (the Mongoose E-Zine available for free from their site) issue 55 contains a free Traveller adventure. For players familiar with Traveller (and having existing Traveller setting material and adventures at hand) this isn't much of a problem, but for a new player that would mean building the default setting from scratch or purchasing additional setting material before beginning play. But, again, the same was true for CT as well...

At the end of the introduction there is a nice overview of Tech Levels, including some interesting information and changes as well: Jump Drives are now late TL9 (instead of just TL9), real starfaring starts at TL10 (or late TL9 for the very least), Jump Drives use gravitic technology and true AIs are TL11 instead of TL16+ (which is a good thing IMHO - modernizing the game a bit; if you want to limit AIs in your game, you could still add cultural/historical limitations to their use).

It should be noted that the text in some text boxes at the bottom of pages, such as in the bottom of p.4, is quite small and a bit difficult to read. But it is still readable.

 

[Golan2072]

Impression from the Character Generation System, part 1
Characteristics are generated by rolling 2d6 six times and arranging as desired (which I've done as a house-rule for a few years already ). This means that characters are usually close to the average in their overall characteristics, but the players still have some control on which score their character would have in each characteristic. I like this that way.

Characteristics give DMs to task throws (among other things) according to a table, not unlike the way abilities are used in D20 games.

A funny point: the sample character sheet on p.7 has a Free Trader listed under "Equipment" with a mass of "plenty"...

MGT characters receive level-0 background skills before starting their careers, based on their Education and partially dependent on their homeworlds. These rules are simple, straightforward and elegant. Their only weakness is that they lack a quick-generation system for homeworlds, so a homeworld has to be either pre-generated, or generated on the fly using the WorldGen rules.

An interesting note: According to p.6, a character with Medic-2 could be considered a doctor, as opposed to CT's Medic-3...

 

[Supplement Four]

Thanks for the commentary, Omer. I'll be reading all of your posts on this.

Characteristics are generated by rolling 2d6 six times and arranging as desired (which I've done as a house-rule for a few years already ). This means that characters are usually close to the average in their overall characteristics, but the players still have some control on which score their character would have in each characteristic. I like this that way.

Hmm. I actually dislike that, much preferring CT's way of "you get the STR you roll". I find, what you get if you let players arrange stats to their taste, almost no one has a low STR/DEX, and almost no one has a high SOC (the throw away stat, unless you've got a 11+ throw to use as a noble).

So, for me, that's actually another strike against MGT (in the long line of things I've read about it so far that don't strike me as "great").

Is there an optional rule for chargen?

 

[Golan2072]

Is there an optional rule for chargen?

There is no optional rule in this regard, but it'll be very easy to create a house-rule to this effect

 

[Echo]

Thanks for the commentary, Omer. I'll be reading all of your posts on this.



Hmm. I actually dislike that, much preferring CT's way of "you get the STR you roll". I find, what you get if you let players arrange stats to their taste, almost no one has a low STR/DEX, and almost no one has a high SOC (the throw away stat, unless you've got a 11+ throw to use as a noble).

So, for me, that's actually another strike against MGT (in the long line of things I've read about it so far that don't strike me as "great").

Is there an optional rule for chargen?

Well, the option to roll up in strict characteristic order if you want, is pretty much a no-brainer isn't it?

In my experience the people who tend to put high rolls in physical stats are those people who like playing combatant characters. There are others, however, that prefer playing sneaky, or intelligent, or well educated, or socially advantaged characters. Why is giving players a degree of choice in the matter such a bad thing?

 

[Mongoose Acolyte]

Contrast that with the 'colour' art. Well it's obviously originally in colour, and they paid for for colour art, but then couldn't afford to have colour pages.

Nope, the ship pics were all black and white and were ordered as such. IF the artist did them in colour we certainly never saw any colour version (or ever asked for one).

Personally I just think Carlos is incredibly good (he's done some of the art for the Spinward MArches as well, you might be glad to hear).

 

[Supplement Four]

Well, the option to roll up in strict characteristic order if you want, is pretty much a no-brainer isn't it?

Well, sure. But, it also speaks to the design of the game, too. The choices the designer made. I've seen so much that disappoints me about MGT in this regard, and reading that was another "nail in the coffin", so to speak.

But, I'm not trying to turn this into a MGT bashing thread. We've had enough of those. Don't read my comments that way. It's just my reaction to reading that part of Omer's comments on the rules.

The reason I'm reading Omer's comments, btw, is to see if I can find enough about MGT I like to actually buy it. So far, the answer to that question is "no". But...we'll see. Omer's got a lot more of the book to get through.

In my experience the people who tend to put high rolls in physical stats are those people who like playing combatant characters. There are others, however, that prefer playing sneaky, or intelligent, or well educated, or socially advantaged characters. Why is giving players a degree of choice in the matter such a bad thing?

Depends on the game. Depends on the player. IMO, if we're talking Star Wars (I'm a big fan of D6 Star Wars), then larger than life heroes is the name of the game. Same goes for D&D.

But, Traveller is about real people, imo. That's what made it different from other rpgs back in the day. So, yeah, allowing a player to min/max his stats is a bit of a munchkin move.

 

[Klaus]

Nope, the ship pics were all black and white and were ordered as such. IF the artist did them in colour we certainly never saw any colour version (or ever asked for one).

Personally I just think Carlos is incredibly good (he's done some of the art for the Spinward MArches as well, you might be glad to hear).

I stand corrected. Intriguing... They are a little low contrast though. I bet they'd look even better on glossy paper!

 

[Echo]

But, Traveller is about real people, imo. That's what made it different from other rpgs back in the day. So, yeah, allowing a player to min/max his stats is a bit of a munchkin move.

But they can't min/max their stats. They can merely prioritise the types of characteristics that they would prefer their character to have. It's actually less min-maxy than T4 (which allowed you to allocate 12 dice scores wherever you wanted), and on a par with T20.

Of course, you could min-max if you used the optional points-spend system, but considering the number of people that complained about the absence of that over the years, I think it was a good inclusion too.

 

[Golan2072]

Impression from the Character Generation System, part 2
There are 12 careers, each divided into 3 Specializations, which means that there are in total 36 sub-careers, covering almost every base. P.9 has a very useful table with page references for each career as well as the task throws for qualification (i.e. enlistment), survival and promotion. Yes, you've heard me right - these are now handled by the MGT task system, which simplifies things and makes the system easier to use and learn, but on the other hand removes a little bit of CT's nuances.

Each Specialization has its own survival and promotion rolls, a specialist skill table, its own ranks and its own automatic skills - it's almost a career on its own! And the player is free to choose his specialization, which is something I like (though, if you prefer a CT feel, you could easily house-rule that on a roll of 1d6, 1-2 puts you in the first specialization of the career, 3-4 in the second and 5-6 in the third).

Other than Drifters (and the auto-enlistment into the Nobles if you have Soc 10+), Merchants have the easiest qualification roll - easier than citizens! I guess that this is a major flavor thing, as the majority of NPCs encountered would be Citizens, but PCs would be more likely to be Merchants... Nobles have the hardest Qualification roll, but if your Soc is 10+ you get accepted automatically with no roll. So while a commoner would have a hard time getting into politics (i.e. Administrator) or diplomacy, Nobles get a free pass. Perfectly fitting for the Imperium, I think...

The easiest survival is for Dilettante Nobles, followed by Scientist/Physician Scholars and Worker Citizens.

Note that there are now Specializations within the Scout career that have easier survival than in the CT norm, but these are hard to advance in (yes, Scouts have advancement but thankfully no real ranks) and thus a bit of a lower chance to get a Type-S.

There are now enlisted/NCO ranks in the three military careers (Army, Marines, Navy), as well as commission rolls. Interestingly enough, Agent (Law Enforcement) doesn't have them. Promotion and Re-Enlistment rolls have been merged into an Advancement roll, and now re-enlistment is dependent on the the number of terms served (the more terms you've served, the greater chance for you to fail re-enlistment; I guess that this exists to balance the lack of chargen death).

Failed survival now forces you to leave you career as well as roll on a mishap table. An optional "iron man" rule does exist for those who prefer character death during chargen.

A question: do you get a skill roll for a term you've failed Survival in? Also, if an Event (except for a roll of 2 that clearly states the opposite) causes a Mishap roll, does it also force you to leave your career?

Career illustrations are a good idea, helping you visualize characters from each career as well as describe NPCs, though in some cases they are arranged in the wrong order: for example, for Citizen, the sub-careers are Corporate, Worker and Colonist while the illustrations look like Worker, Corporate and Colonist

A bug in the rules: asteroid mining now seems to work with Drones (see both the Seeker on p.115 and the Remote Operations skill description on p.57), but Drifter (Scavengers), who are described as Belters, don't get this skill, and neither do they get the Sensors skill (which would probably be useful for serious belting). Remote Operations is a rare skill, and only the Navy get it, and even then as an Advanced Education skill. All this while the world implied by the ship designs and equipment rules seems to be drone-heavy... A possible fix would be to allow characters to substitute Remote Operations to the Computer (or Mechanic?) skill, similar to how the Robot Ops skill is handled in CT-LBB8.

Oh, and Marines no longer have an automatic Cutlass skill - they get to choose between Melee and Gun Combat as their first automatic skill.

Most ships - other than Scouts, that is - are now handled similarly to CT's Free Traders, and have mortgages (with Ship Shares reducing the costs). Yep, this also includes Yachts and Corsairs.

 

[Smiling DM]

Impression from the Character Generation System, part 2
. . . and now re-enlistment is dependent on the the number of terms served (the more terms you've served, the greater chance for you to fail re-enlistment; I guess that this exists to balance the lack of chargen death).

Actually the penalty on re-enlistment is for each prior Career, not total number of terms. As long as you stay in a single career, there is no re-enlistment penalty - you can stay in for as long as you can make thoe re-enlist rolls.

My interpretation is that the "-1 DM for each previous Career" is there to keep people from jumping through several different Careers during Char Gen - especially since you get a free skill from the Service List as basic training when you move to a new Career.

 

[Supplement Four]

But they can't min/max their stats.

If you're arrangeing stats to taste, that's a form of min/maxing. If you roll six throws, and one of them is a 2, the overwhelming majority of the players playing MGT is not going to stick that low score in STR or DEX. What you're going to get is the player saying, "Oh well, I guess he came from a poor background." And, boom, that 2 goes into SOC.

I would never allow that in my game. Supreme character building in CT comes from rolling that 2 in STR and then the player working his dice off trying to get it increased during chargen.

I mean, hey, if you want to play that way, then go in peace. It's your game, and you're the only determinate of what's "fun" in your game. I'm not trying to dog your parade.

From my point of view, though, a mechanic like that waters down the Traveller edge. And, the reason I said "it's another nail in the MGT coffin" is that the designer found it a good idea to not only allow the mechanic in the game--but to also make it the default way stats are generated.

That's a bad choice from where I'm standing and it makes me suspect of other design choices he might have made.

Compound this with the fact that the same designer used the T/E mechanic until TBeard showed him what a bad idea that was (shouldn't have to show designers bad stats like that--they should already know), and then compound it some more with the fact that the artist who drew the deckplans in the book did not understand what a dton was (and subsequently, all the deckplans in the MGT book are wrong).

Put all that together, and you can see why I'm extremely suspicious of MGT being a quality product.

I will read on...let's see what Omer has to say. We're not always on the same side of the fence on issues, but I do trust his opinion.

It's actually less min-maxy than T4 (which allowed you to allocate 12 dice scores wherever you wanted), and on a par with T20.

You must be using the universal "you". I never allowed that in my T4 games. Plus, T4 isn't such a good example as that edition of Traveller is known to be the most broken, buggiest edition yet published.

 

[Golan2072]

I will read on...let's see what Omer has to say. We're not always on the same side of the fence on issues, but I do trust his opinion.

I thank you for your trust and interest

Actually the penalty on re-enlistment is for each prior Career, not total number of terms. As long as you stay in a single career, there is no re-enlistment penalty - you can stay in for as long as you can make thoe re-enlist rolls.

My interpretation is that the "-1 DM for each previous Career" is there to keep people from jumping through several different Careers during Char Gen - especially since you get a free skill from the Service List as basic training when you move to a new Career.

P.9 says (under Advancement): "if your result is equal or less than the number of terms spent in this career, then you cannot continue in this career after this term".

 

[Jame]

My one thing is that MGT never gives a roll for reenlisting in any individual career, E.G. if you're in the navy from term 1, it doesn't say how you reenlist in the navy in term 2.

 

[Golan2072]

Impression from the Character Generation System, part 3
Mustering out is similar to CT, with two major differences: first, it adds a few new benefits (armor, air/raft, scientific equipment and ship's boat). Second, as I've mentioned before, ship benefits are handled using "ship shares"; most ships (except for the Scout, that is) are now mortgaged (how do you get a mortgage for your Corsair? from the mob, I guess...), and ship shares reduce the basic cost before the mortgage (each share by 1%, so a VERY VERY rare and lucky party having 100 shares together could get a new ship without monthly payments). Shares are usually earmarked to a particular ship and are worth less for the purchase of other ships (e.g. receiving the "Free Trader" benefits gives you 5 Free Trader shares or 2 generic ship shares) This is a nice system overall, though I prefer Nobles to get yachts without mortgages and Pirates to have Corsairs without mortgages (stolen, won in gambling, and so on). Scout ships are on detached duty like in CT - free, but the Scout Service might decide you send you on missions from time to time.

An interesting touch is that purchases made from starting funds are limited to only Cr2,000 in total during chargen; expensive gear has to be bought in-game. This probably exists for two reasons: first, give the referee greater control on purchases, and, second, limit the amount of time spend on shopping during chargen. I'd probably allow my players to ignore this rule, BUT make sure they understand that I - the Referee - make the final decision on what they could purchase and what not. Another possible house-rule would be to give a law level restriction to pre-game purchases, thus keeping PGMP's out of the initial game.

A nice addition is the contact/ally/rival/enemy mechanic, which means that most characters would have useful (to the player in the case of contacts and allies; to the referee in case of rivals/enemies) NPCs listed down on their character sheets, usually connected to Events rolled during CharGen. Contacts are similar to the ones in TNE (Allies are similar to "solid contacts") and are mostly free-form (as opposed to the detailed contact ratings you have in Shadowrun).

You COULD die during MGT character generation even without the Iron man optional rule. If you're unlucky and a Mishap (or aging, for that matter) reduces a Characteristic to zero, you die unless you pay a hefty medical fee (or could you put this into "medical debt")?

Other Mishap injuries could be definitely cured by medical care, which costs money, though most careers subsidize (or even eliminate in some cases) this cost. Medical costs are deducted from your Cash Benefits, and any leftovers are debts you have to pay in-game.

You could take anagathics during CharGen to avoid aging, and their costs are handled similarly to other chargen medical costs. Anagathics are far, far cheaper in MGT than in CT, which isn't something I like very much (unless you give them side-effects, that is); in a high-TL universe, I'd give them CT prices, but make aging slower even without them on high-TL worlds (due to high-tech preventive medical care). But I usually like pre-TL15 settings (such as 1248 or near-future ATUs), and anagathics are TL15 - rare relic-tech in 1248 or alien artifacts in near-future ATUs - not something I'd allow in chargen in pre-TL15 settings. Anyhow, to balance anagathics, there is an optional rule putting a 6-term-maximum limit on characters.

Retirement pay, by the way, works in MGT in a very similar manner to CT.

The MGT chargen process is designed to be a group effort (though there are optional rules to do it individually); there is a mechanic called "connection" which essentially connects different PCs' Events and grants each PC up to two additional skill points to spend as they desire (as long as they don't increase a skill above 3), and there is a group "skill package" allowing the group to split a few campaign-relevant skill-1's to make the group well-rounded in terms of skills.

There is also an optional point-buy rule; I haven't tried it yet, so I can't tell how balanced it is. I'll try it soon and post the results.

An example character is provided - Alexander Lacelles Jamison of the CT fame. The example is very detailed, and thus helpful. On a strange note, Jamison's picture on p.39 looks to me a bit like a Shadowrun dwarf...

While the character sheets and sample NPCs provided do not use UWPs, they are still mentioned and described by the rules.

 

[Supplement Four]

...and ship shares reduce the basic cost before the mortgage (each share by 1%, so a VERY VERY rare and lucky party having 100 shares together could get a new ship without monthly payments). Shares are usually earmarked to a particular ship and are worth less for the purchase of other ships (e.g. receiving the "Free Trader" benefits gives you 5 Free Trader shares or 2 generic ship shares)

If I read you correctly, one of the muster out options is to get a ship share. A ship share is worth 1% of a ship.

So, you reduce the cost of the ship by 1% per share?

I'm not quite clear on how this works. Can you provide a more detailed example?

Can the ship shares be traded for cash, like a High Passage?

An interesting touch is that purchases made from starting funds are limited to only Cr2,000 in total during chargen; expensive gear has to be bought in-game.

Is there a Cash Muster table as in CT? If so, the character can have Cr50,000 but is only allowed to spend Cr2,000 pre-game?

 

[Supplement Four]

A nice addition is the contact/ally/rival/enemy mechanic, which means that most characters would have useful (to the player in the case of contacts and allies; to the referee in case of rivals/enemies) NPCs listed down on their character sheets, usually connected to Events rolled during CharGen. Contacts are similar to the ones in TNE (Allies are similar to "solid contacts") and are mostly free-form (as opposed to the detailed contact ratings you have in Shadowrun).

The ship shares have arched my eyebrow. I'm interested in those. But, I'm not sure I'd really care about contacts being made in chargen.

It seems to me, that the contacts come naturally from chargen. They don't need to be forced on a character. For example, in CT, a character could be fresh from his homeworld, having never travelled anywhere before (and therefore, all of his contacts would likely be on his homeworld and not ever "seen" in the game).

Then again, if you've got two characters that were in the Navy, it's a no-brainer to say, "Hey, these two guys served together, and that's how they became friends before they partnered up as crewers on this free trader."

I remember reading, with TNE, that contacts were involved. This would sometimes force a contact onto a character that the GM really didn't have an inclination should have an important contact.

I'm splitting hairs here--it's just that I haven't been fond of that type of thing in TNE. Don't think I'd care for it in MGT either.







BTW, an interesting optional rule (one I'd be all for) would be to turn these "contacts" into family members. Too often, Traveller characters don't have wives, ex-wives, children, close brother or sister, best friend, or invalid parents to take care of. The "contact" could be transformed into a familiy member obligation for the character.

Now, that would be pretty cool.

You COULD die during MGT character generation even without the Iron man optional rule. If you're unlucky and a Mishap (or aging, for that matter) reduces a Characteristic to zero, you die unless you pay a hefty medical fee (or could you put this into "medical debt")?

So, basically, it's pretty easy to jump careers in MGT, right?

I'm OK with career jumps as long as there are penalties--not just for enlistment, but there should be age maximums too.

For example: Is it possible, in MGT, for a player to develop a Doctor, for two or three terms and then decide to join the Army just to get some combat skills on his character?

If that is how MGT works, then that's just plain bad game design.

OTOH, if there are penalties (for ex: a penalty DM to enlist in another career AND the other career has age limits...which would stop the Doctor above from getting in a single term as an Army character), then I'm all for it. People can and do change careers in the real world--but it's not always easy. Especially after you have a certain amount of experience in one career. Repsponsibilities.

Other Mishap injuries could be definitely cured by medical care, which costs money, though most careers subsidize (or even eliminate in some cases) this cost. Medical costs are deducted from your Cash Benefits, and any leftovers are debts you have to pay in-game.

I'm not opposed to this, but it does seem that MGT has taken a lot of the edge off of Traveller characters.

I liken CT to elementary school track and field day where only the winner is awarded a trophy.

MGT feels more like the ignorant current stance where some elementary schools are awarding trophies to all the kids. They're all winners, and there is no special recognition for coming in first.

To Explain: MGT has the "arrange to taste" stats. Let's all be happy! Where as CT has the "you get what you roll" stats. MGT has "fail survival? no prob! We'll fix it!" Where as CT has "fail survival? You're dead."

Anagathics are far, far cheaper in MGT than in CT, which isn't something I like very much...

I agree. Anagathics should be a very expensive addiction--not an asprin.

I view this as more of the watering down of the edge of the game, akin to the re-arrangement of the stats, the easy jumping from career to career, and the no-death survival.

Hey! We're all getting a trophy! Isn't that great! We're all winners!

The MGT chargen process is designed to be a group effort (though there are optional rules to do it individually); there is a mechanic called "connection" which essentially connects different PCs' Events and grants each PC up to two additional skill points to spend as they desire (as long as they don't increase a skill above 3), and there is a group "skill package" allowing the group to split a few campaign-relevant skill-1's to make the group well-rounded in terms of skills.

More edge-watering.

There is also an optional point-buy rule; I haven't tried it yet, so I can't tell how balanced it is.

Yuk.